Remembering Michael Morgan, Groundbreaking Conductor of the Oakland Symphony Orchestra

Michael Morgan, conductor of the Oakland Symphony Orchestra died last week at 63. Morgan was known as a virtuosic conductor and a passionate advocate for making classical music accessible to an Oakland community he was deeply invested in. He embraced a melding of musical genres, even bringing in comedian W. Kamau Bell and activist Dolores Huerta to curate playlists for his orchestra to perform. “Being a classical musician, being a conductor, being Black, being gay — all of these things put you on the outside,” Michael Morgan, said in 2013. “So you get accustomed to constructing your own world because there are not a lot of clear paths to follow and not a lot of people that are just like you.” We remember Michael Morgan with some of the musicians and performers he worked with.

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